Costa Mesa Chief Apologizes; Wife of Ex-Ram Drops Suit

The wife of a retired St. Louis Ram football player who was mistaken for a theft suspect at South Coast Plaza agreed to drop a civil rights lawsuit after the Police Department’s chief offered an apology, attorneys said Wednesday.

Annie Slater, who is African American and married to Jackie Slater, contended she was wrongly detained because of her race while shopping last year.

She dropped the case after receiving a letter from Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden apologizing for “any embarrassment which resulted from a misidentification.” As part of the agreement, Snowden agreed to write a memo reminding officers about “the sensitivity of African-Americans in our community.”

“It’s basically what Mrs. Slater asked for in the beginning,” said Christopher Mears, her attorney. “It was never about receiving some large amount of money. Unfortunately, it took filing a lawsuit for the city to honor her request.”

The city agreed to pay $7,000 in attorney fees and court costs for Slater.

Police officials said the letter is not an admission of guilt, stressing that the officers did not base their decision to detain Slater on her race while searching for another woman who passed a bad travelers check.

“We don’t tolerate race discrimination, religious discrimination, any discrimination here,” Snowden said. “My officers did nothing wrong.”

“What I meant by the memo is that no matter how good you do your job, there’s going to be people out there who claim that you didn’t. And you must be extra, extra sensitive out there.”

Slater, who lives in Orange with her family, was standing outside a cafe with her two children on Oct. 13 when two police officers detained her because she fit the description of another woman wanted for theft, Mears said.

“[The officers] were told that the suspect is an African American woman wearing a black and white dress,” Mears said. “And without asking for any more information . . . they went and detained Mrs. Slater.

“Her two sons were standing there with her.”

Police said the officers had received information from a security dispatcher, who pointed to Slater as the suspect. The sales clerk who reported the crime later told police that Slater was not the person who submitted a fraudulent check, and Slater was released.

But Slater said in her lawsuit that she should never have been held in the first place. For 45 minutes, she tried to explain to officers that she had no part in the crime, showing them she was carrying more than $400 in cash, Mears said.

Had the officers asked the sales clerks more questions, Mears said, they would have known the suspect was wearing a colorful flower, which Slater was not wearing. They would have known that the suspect was not accompanied by two children, but by another woman. And they would have known that the suspect is taller and heavier, according to the attorney.

“Why didn’t they get more information? One reason they did not was that officers, like many others, tend to think in very simplistic terms when it comes to people of color,” Mears said.

“It’s not our view that the officers were malignant racists, but if Annie Slater had not been black, she would not have been stopped.” Police officials said they were acting on limited information and not race, adding that Slater was held for about 15 minutes, not 45 minutes. The two officers were exonerated of any wrongdoing, Snowden said.

“This has changed them. . . . It has made their jobs weary,” Snowden said. “It seems like no matter how hard we work, there’s going to be somebody throwing stones, and we have to catch the stones and try not to be hurt by them.”

Snowden wrote in the letter to Slater that he extends his “most sincere apologies” and assured Slater the department is committed to providing police services “free of any hint of discrimination.”

“Your claim will encourage us to rededicate ourselves to achieving this goal,” the chief wrote.

A separate memorandum to be distributed among the department’s police officers addressed the same issue. “[The chief] is to be commended for stepping forward and taking responsibility for what happened here and for his sincere efforts in reminding his officers that they need to be more sensitive to these types of issues,” Mears said.

Slater declined to be interview through her attorney.

“The Slaters are very private people,” Mears said. “It took some soul searching on their part to proceed with this lawsuit in the first place. They felt that they had some responsibilities to their sons and other African Americans who face this on a routine basis.”